


All I Need Is An Open Road

by ThereIsNoTragedyInThat



Series: Somewhere Between Kansas and the Open Road [13]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester Bingo 2020, Dean Winchester Loves The Impala, Dean Winchester-centric, Drabble, Gen, Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Missing Scene, Protective Dean Winchester, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:35:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25476220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereIsNoTragedyInThat/pseuds/ThereIsNoTragedyInThat
Summary: The Impala had a long history of keeping Winchesters together.Dean Winchester Bingo: Impala (O1)
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Somewhere Between Kansas and the Open Road [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698406
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	All I Need Is An Open Road

Dean took a deep breath, eyes closed, inhaling the fresh air of the dusty roadside. The sun was pressing down, the heat nearly sweltering, except for the steady breeze offering some small relief. Sipping from the cold beer hanging loosely from his fingertips, Dean allowed himself a small smile. He was sitting half out of the impala, door sitting open and air conditioning on max as he watched the lazy traffic move past.

The bunker was forty minutes east if he went the speed limit and fifteen if there was an emergency. Sam was certainly stilled holed up in the library, pouring over ancient scripts and squinting at the incomprehensible scribbling of legacies from long ago.

At the moment there wasn’t some world-ending entity or event looming over their heads, not that Dean really believed that would last, and he was taking advantage of this small reprieve they’d stumbled into. Dean had figured he should spend some quality time with his baby, take her for a drive and figure out if there was any more fine tuning to be done. Not that he wouldn’t do it anyway, it was just good to figure out if there was a larger problem on his hands.

In the end she had run as smooth as ever and anything he’d work on tomorrow would be for his own benefit and not hers. Running a damp hand over the wheel, Dean felt a surge of emotion well up inside him. There were perfect grooves that seemed to cradle his fingers from years of use, shiny with his constant touch. Here and there he could spot grease stains and on Sam’s side…the place on the armrest that Sam would lean against.

These days the impala was the second most important thing in his life, though she had a long history of fluctuating with third place. Dean knew it was incredibly stupid, but he’d often felt guilty about it had the strangest of times. Felt like he owed her more than second or third place…sometimes even fourth. Luckily, nobody had to know that except him and Sam.

It was true he’d give her up without a second thought for Sammy, and then for awhile she had to sit behind Mary and Bobby and Castiel but now…well there wasn’t a lot Dean felt he could put before his baby besides Sam. Most of his favourite and least favourite memories lived in that car and there was a small part of Dean that was that surprised his spirit had never attached itself to her. Maybe one day, he hadn’t died for the last time yet, of that Dean was sure.

Dean found himself reaching up and pressing a calloused palm to the roof, hand running along the interior until he came to the edge, where it met the door. Using his index finger, he pressed down and watched with satisfaction as a small blade slipped out, followed by a paper clip. The blade was just that, a piece of an old shaving kit and a last case defense when he had nothing else. The paperclip he’d used on many kinds of bindings…the blade not so much, it was a comfort all the same.

He wasn’t the only that had hidden treasures within the impala. Over the years Dean had found everything from long-forgotten toys, shoved within crevices to notes about certain Latin phrases that might help them out if they were in a pinch. Their car had been everything from a home to toolbox to a refuge and Dean wouldn’t want it any other way.

Dean liked having the bunker. He liked his own space and knowing they were irrefutably safe within the confines of those walls but if they ever lost the bunker for some reason, Dean wouldn’t mind hunkering back down in Baby’s embrace. Wouldn’t mind hearing Sam breathe only a few inches away, safe and sound, watching the stars through the windshield, waking up to the wilderness and open road. No, he wouldn’t mind that at all. It would just feel right, in a way that nothing else ever could.

Reaching his arm out and tipping the still half full beer onto the ground, he smiled as tossed the empty bottle into the back and slammed the door closed. The urge to go was welling up inside him. He wanted to feel the hum of the impala’s engine beneath his hands and the cracks and potholes of the highway jarring his bones, the wind whipping past him.

For a moment he had the wild urge to leave off his seatbelt, a relic of his youth before Sammy had started lecturing both him and their dad about the dangers. He wasn’t stupid and put it on with a satisfying click as his hands settled against the wheel once more, running them over it a few times before figuring out where he wanted to go.

Dean didn’t need a specific place, a direction would do, any direction. Then again, that wasn’t quite true, because he was already pretty far away from the bunker and to go any further would grate on his instincts. He trusted Sammy, knew his brother could take care of himself and if something got the jump on him, well, it would only be a matter of time until Dean found him and brought him home. That didn’t change the fact that he was a big brother and had a monopoly on caring about his brother.

With that in mind, a direction had already been chosen. East it was and if he reached the bunker and still wanted to keep driving, then he would, there were eight different directions after all, with Lebanon sitting dead center. Shaking his head at himself a little bit, Dean put her in gear and got going, much faster than he should but slower than he wanted.

Baby would understand. She had a lifetime of keeping the Winchesters together and bringing them home after a long day. She had never faltered, not really, not when John Winchester should have been passed out from blood loss, not when the meter teetered dangerous at an empty tank for way longer then it should, not when one of them was in trouble and needed to get there in the nick of time.

She was always there and ready to carry on.


End file.
